I guess my question is who gave the Americans the right? I say this as an American. But would not the world be a better place if we just minded our own business and quit nation building and stoking non existant fires?
I guess my question is who gave the Americans the right? I say this as an American. But would not the world be a better place if we just minded our own business and quit nation building and stoking non existant fires?
I think it’s even simpler than this. I think any government/state/group with power wants to hold and expand it. I’m not sure there is a group of people that exist that wouldn’t work to exercise control if they could. And I’m not defending the US, I just think it may be an inherently human thing to do.
Then you’d be wrong. Famously, after the Russian Revolution in 1917, the Russian Socialist Federation of Soviet Republics, under the leadership of the Bolsheviks, created the first constitution in history that granted the unilateral right of self-determination and secession to all peoples of the former Russian Empire. This is how Poland gained its independence in 1918, as well as Finland and many other countries formerly part of the Russian Empire. Interesting episode of history.
So how did they get from 1918 to 1968?
In 1918 Poland decided to unilaterally invade modern Ukraine and Belarus because of nationalist expansionist beliefs, you can read about it on the wikipedia article or the Polish-Ukrainian war.
In 1939 the Soviet Union recovered those territories and gave them back to the Belarusian and Ukrainian SSRs, which Poles are still crying about. If you care about seeing maps representing this I can give you sources no problem since I’m arguing from good faith.
After 1945, Poland was forced by the USSR to give reparations in order to compensate for the lack of mutual defense agreement against Nazis before 1939, which was a mistaken policy that led to a lot of insatisfaction in Poland. After the mid-1950s, the Soviet Union removed these reparations and instead started subsidising the Polish socialist nation with cheap resources and industrialising it.
What part of 1969 is relevant to you?